Countdown to State of the Union–2012: Obama Repeats Himself With Election Year Messages

In a preview of his re-election campaign, President Barack Obama used his 2012 State of the Union address to describe a horrific past to which he would not let the nation return. “No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits…to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny your coverage, or charge women differently than men…to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules.”

Touting the successful raid against Osama bin Laden, the president raised eyebrows by suggesting that the military was a model for how the country as a whole should work: “When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one nation, leaving no one behind.” Gone were the days when Obama saw dissent as patriotic.

The president also talked up the nation’s economic recovery, and pledged to revive manufacturing, to confront China over trade, and (once again) to reform the nation’s tax code. He also repeated promises to focus on education, immigration reform, and renewable energy. In fact, so much of his 2012 address was repeated from previous years that the Republican National Committee released a side-by-side comparison.

Projecting election-year pride, Obama spoke about various achievements over his first term, telling Congress (inaccurately) that opinions of America had risen worldwide. Obama also made a false claim about the deficit that Democrats have since repeated in various forms–namely, that he had cut $2 trillion from spending. He also promised that he would fight financial crimes, even though Wall Street has yet to face one prosecution related to the 2008 crash.

Obama did make–and deliver on–one new promise: to ban insider trading in Congress, a cause that began with Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer.